


Bedtime Story

by linkzeldi



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: roommates au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7065064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linkzeldi/pseuds/linkzeldi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A roommates AU where Kaneki has complicated feelings towards the fact that he shares a living space with his favorite author.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedtime Story

Three. Kaneki tapped his finger above the digital readout watching the number fizzle just to be sure.

He should not be concerned. 

That person could take care of their own affairs. 

The sound of soft footsteps danced down the hallway. Then a crash as a mess collapsed in on itself. Kaneki’s suspicions were confirmed. 

Six months ago, Kaneki Ken stopped allowing Hideyoshi Nagachika into his apartment. This was a month after a sickness Kaneki fell into caused him to fall behind in classes, and on his rent. 

Hide suspected the worst, like maybe in his sleep Kaneki had transformed into an insect and now hid behind the door because he was ashamed at what Hide would see. Well, that was not entirely untrue. He was ashamed, but at who Hide would see, and more importantly the conclusions he might jump to. 

One week before that day, Kaneki decided to lament his fortunes in a cafe different from his usual haunt of anteiku. The air smelled of finely roasted coffee beans, but he hardly drank from his coffee, let alone the atmosphere. He sat by himself and sat in his own woes like a bloated corpse. Apparently his aura of misery stank so bad, he roused the curiosity of a bird of prey. She took a seat without asking for invite, but the most she started talking Kaneki became convinced he wanted her there from the start.

To an endless useless, ungainly, awkward, indecisive and weak Kaneki, she extended a hand. It took him nothing more than a week from the Eto he had met that day to go from his savior, to an author just using him for research material. Author, yes, Eto, who moved in with him the day after hearing his woes, was actually his favorite author Takatsuki Sen, and what he first thought to be a gesture of kindness was actually, another one of her whims. 

It was the kind of event that only ever happened in comedies and tragedies, and even after six months of living together Kaneki could not decide which one his life had become. 

Three fifteen now. The first pinpricks of stars were now struggling to shine through the haze that was Tokyo’s night sky. It was a useless sight. 

Kaneki closed the book he tried to distracted himself with. He had been staring at the same page for fifteen minutes, rereading the words and each time comprehending less. He was bad at many things, but he was worst at turning a blind eye to somebody in need. Even if there was no way they would accept his help. 

He finally stepped out, following the single beam of flicking light that reflected down the hallway through the crack Sen left her door open. Kaneki gave his bedroom up out of embarrassment when she first moved in, and now it had been long since he stepped in. Now he inspected with one eye through the crack. He saw the tell-tale sign of clutter that seemed to follow Eto in every space she inhabited, and then by the same glow of her monitor he saw the side of her face outlined.

Ah, there she was, the fellow resident of his garden. Though, whether she was Eve or the serpent he had yet to decide. 

\--

It seemed like the road was cluttered with spam. 

A cord that resmeled a yellow spaghetti was popping out from its cross-section. 

I watch its internal organs bloomed in such a grotesque manner.

And then I thought to myself, “What was that noise?”

...

Eto looked at the sentence she just typed, and realize those were her own personal thoughs, not the thought of her character. Before she could turn around she felt hands on her shoulders. Much warmer than they had any business being. Humans were cold creatures by nature, and there was no evidence that any other being besides herself was anything more than a walking corpse. 

“You have a signing tomorrow, if you don’t go to sleep soon, you’ll oversleep again,” He tries to make his voice stern, but the thing she likes about Kaneki, as a character, as a point of interest, (not as a person, never as a person) was that he was not nearly in control as he thought he was and even in that simple reminder the emotion in his voice bled through. 

She put a hand over his where he touched her, oh if only she did not insist on wearing shirts twice her size at night she could avoid this skin on skin contact entirely. “Why are you so concerned, Kaneki? Are you afraid I won’t be there to sign your book. If you bring it here I can sign it right now, oho.”

Kaneki had mentioned he was her biggest fan the first time they met, but he perhaps because of the ungodly restraint that seemed to dictate all of his actions had never once brought up her identity of Takatsuki Sen again when they took to living together. The thing about things wound tight with Eto though, is that she always wanted to see them undone. 

“Fine, I’ll go get it.”

Kaneki disappeared from the room. Eto felt the ghost of his touch on her shoulder. She spun around slowly in her chair, watched the door for moments that seemed like hours, nervously curling her toes on the edge of her chair as Kaneki had done it once again. Done the thing that disqualified him from every other being on earth that might as well be the nondescript background characters in a novel. He defied her expectations. 

When he finally returned, the tightness in Eto’s shoulders loosened -stop that- and she leaned into the conversation. He did bring the book after all. “Oh, who should I make it-”

“I don’t want you to sign my book,” Kaneki said clearly. “I’m going to help you fall asleep.”

“By reading me passages from my own book? How vain do you think I am exactly.”

Kaneki said nothing in response. He walked, avoiding the mess that lay haphazardly across the floor by toeing in between spaces with his socks, and sat on the edge of Eto’s mattress. “Come,” he said, patting the square ledge of the bed next to him. 

Eto took the opportunity though, and plopped down right in his lap. She moved so fast he barely had time to react, which made her feel a twinge of regret in the pit of her stomach. Kaneki made a delicious face whenever he was caught off guard. 

Eto had always been on the petite side (as she preferred to call it) and she fit into the curve of Kaneki’s lap perfectly. He did not need to know that though, so she spent longer than necessary moving in, and against his lap trying to find the perfect spot, savoring every second, until her back found his stomach. Then she tilted her head back to watch, licking her lips slightly as she did. 

Kaneki did not seem to notice, he was too busy trying to figure out where his hands were supposed to go. Well, as far as reactions could go that would have to satiate her for now. He had left the Black Goat’s Egg on the edge of the mattress, and now tried to reach around Eto for it. After a few seconds of awkward grasping, with Eto wearing her ‘oh so full of it’ smirk, as she looked up at him and used her own perfectly free hands to push the book just out of his reach. 

Kaneki gave up. Which Eto thought would mean he would surrender this farce and leave her alone to write. Kaneki had a habit, preparing and leaving food for her in the fridge, pulling blankets over her shoulder when she dozed off, it was a distugsting, mothering, habit. 

Then insufferable Kaneki did the unexpected again and pulled her closer, crossing his arms over her so he could lean over the curve of her back and her shoulders, so he could reach and pluck the book away and hold it over both of their heads. Eto realized two things, that she had the sensation of both of Kaneki’s arms around her, and then suddenly one arm was gone. To prevent the second, she leaned all her remaining weight on his left arm that still curled around her. A philistine might call this cuddling up, but it was so obviously a strategic move. 

“Comfortable?”

“Quite,” he was trying to be patient, how cute, “I’m just going to-start, yes.”

“Like mortar in a mixer, three heads, melted thickly. Miracles have been used up long ago, and lie cold on the concrete-” 

“Stop, stop, stop!” Eto clapped her hands together like an impatient director. “You’re reciting, not reading.” 

Kaneki paused, she could almost see the words coming together and then breaking apart in his thoughts as he tried to come up with a response. They were different yes, but when she watched his face like this it was almost like she knew him as well as a character in one of her books. But the secret behind the characters in her books was that they were mere offshoots of herself, flaws taken into account and given names. This infant was self doubt, and it was smothered in its crib before it ever came to life. This female was love, and she would always betray. This main character was the question ‘what would i become’, and he was always meant to take the plunge off the building. The greeks believed heavily in fate, it was a force of absolution for them. It hurt less if they were meant to be that way. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know why she related to Kaneki too, the rest of those thoughts were just distractions. 

“Then tell me how to read them,” Kaneki responded back in an even voice that pulled her out.

She blinked at him, smile frozen in place. “You’re…” She actually paused for thought, “Reading it in the same voice as alway the main character he-he’s like a fish way down deep in the dark that lost it’s eyes for lack of light.” 

Kaneki nodded much more seriously at her tangents than usual. He pulled the book up, and Eto could sense the difference right away from the tension he suddenly held in the shoulder she leaned against. “Miracles have been used up long ago, and lie cold on the conrete-” He said and his voice exhibited a coldness that Eto did not know Kaneki capable of. She watched as his eyes turned dull, and his head fell slightly forward. 

“Killed.” 

“I killed.” 

“Have I killed?” 

He read those meaningless repetitions with a different emotion each time, beyond what she had imagined. Which is why she stopped him again, but this time a less harsh method of tapping him slightly on the cheek. 

“That time, what were you thinking?” She asked, her question a blank slate to be handed to him. Never did she leave things so open ended, it implied a lack of control. 

“Well like you said, a character swallowed up in darkness. Why do you ask?”

“A whim, I suppose, or an indulgence.”

“I was thinking, a character whose fallen so far into dark they can’t see light is tragic, but what’s more tragic is the fact that even if they have lost the ability to see it, they want to see the light still. The battle between their resignation, the struggle is what defines the tragedy. That’s how I want to read it.” And then he said, “Eto, your hand.”

She removed her hand from his cheek, not even realizing she had kept it lingering. Kaneki started reading again before the moment could become anything. 

“I was losing my grasp on reality, when the eyes of the heads, opened wetly like genitals, to say hello. The head’s whispered in mother’s voice-”

What was she feeling at the time of writing that line. Eto had forgotten because that emotion had been named and slaughtered in the book already. All in the name of moving forward. Yet here was Kaneki who always lagged several feet behind her, and often stumbled as he endeavored to feel all of his emotions, or none of them depending on the mood. Here he was, and Eto felt like he was the one ahead of her, offering her a hand. When she took it, symbolically and literally, entwining her fingers around those of his free hand. Squeezing the palm lightly, for some kind of sensation as she drifted away into the experience of listening to Kaneki’s words. 

Those emotions, they didn’t exist in her alone but in Kaneki too. That was what his reading made her feel. Another living person, right beside her. 

Then she raised her voice and snatched the book away from him. “I’ll read this part,” she anounced, just daring him to defy her. 

\--

“But I’m the one who's supposed to be reading, so you can fall asleep-” he repeated back dumbfounded. When he saw the brightness of her eyes though, he felt himself unable to deny that part of her. Because that was the part he admired most, he whispered in the back of his head so far away he hoped Eto would never hear. 

“you”  
“you”  
“you”  
“You”  


The way Eto read was something Kaneki could never achieve. Being a fan of stories was one thing, even a thoughtful fan, but she created her own. Her books always felt like, a world that entirely belonged to herself. With places built of paragraphs, and people of words.The things Eto spoke of in her stories, those dark emotions that Kaneki related to, she did more than just feel them she created something from them. Because she had created them, Eto could read those words back to him with perfect precision. He could feel what she felt as she wrote them. 

That was what Kaneki liked about her. Among other things. He kept all of her books the closest to his bed. The first time he read through them a thought occurred to him. Maybe I am not alone in these feelings. Ever since then he could not get this idea of Takatsuki Sen out of his head. He was her favorite reader. But. 

The difference between them, author and reader, was like the difference between man and god. 

That was what kaneki didn’t like about her. That was why he had to keep those feelings of his, reserved for relating to book characters, and not to actual people in front of him. Almost as if she could hear this thoughts, Eto leaned back against him

“How did you fool yourself into thinking you would be loved.”  
“When your so ugly.”  
When Eto read these lines, she threw her head back and laughed. Kaneki thought she was enjoying herself at first, but his eyes lowered and he chastised himself internally for jumping to that immediate inconception rather than try to understand her.

So, with the same guarded words, “You’re not supposed to laugh there, Eto. The character’s internalizing the terrible things their mother told them and letting it become their reality because they’re so lost right now. It’s tragic.”

“Don’t you know, Kaneki Ken? Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.”

“What is it for those who think pretentiously?” Kaneki shot back, without even thinking. He hadn’t realized he said it aloud until a moment after, and when he did he looked at Eto with eyes wide open waiting for his reaction.

Eto laughed harder. 

“Gentle abuse, repeated over and over in ‘that box. The sky flickers, like traffic lights. Before i knew it, nine thorns sprang out from the chest cavity. The diaphragm shivered, as if about to cry.”

Kaneki nestled his chin onto the top of her hair. He knew Eto would not move any time soon, the best option to accomodate was to get comfortable. He tried to think about it in a mechanical way like that, because any other and he might fall apart to the heat he felt in his lap. He noticed her about to reach the last verse of this particular line, and felt an urge to.

“My body!”

He joined in. Eto looked at him with the same expression that tried to scrutinize him, and bring him into her world like she was one of his characters. Her perplexed look broke out into a smile though, and she continued on. 

“I finally lost my grasp on reality, and I started climbing the steel tower. The handrails I touched, all black and rusted.”

Kaneki got even closer than he dared before. His voice fell low to a whisper as he tried to capture the frenzied revelations that the narrative was now building up. Straight into Eto’s ear, leaning over her neck to do so and breathing hot, he hissed, “I knew I was made of poison! No! It was that woman who was poison itself.”

Kaneki withdrew, throwing his head back this time too mimicking Eto’s flair for drama, “Climb, climb. To a higher place, to a higher place, climb!”

Eto laughed again.

Kaneki’s brow twitched. This time he could not help but ask, “Why are you laughing this time? Was that too much?”

“Well you might not know this because you’re always so straight faced and dour, but typically people laugh when they are enjoying themselves.”

“Oh.”

He said simply. But Kaneki, was profoundly affected by those words. As he was profound affected by all of Eto’s words. As Kaneki watched Eto continue to read, this time he let the sentences melt his senses. Instead of standing rigid against her body like a chair, he slowly began to sink into her. When Eto tilted her head back, smiling wide enough that he could see her teeth, Kaneki nuzzled further into the back of her head. He felt a warmth around him, especially dotting up on his cheeks. 

He was close enough, he took a great inhale. A sweet smell with dashes of vanilla and almond. Kaneki read somewhere once that chemical compounds in old books broke down to produce those scents. 

It was the perfect scent for Eto, the older woman surrounded by books. No, beyond that, it was twinged with an old nostalgia, the same kind of smell he first encountered when he wandered into his father’s old study. When he touched a book for the first time, and realized he was not alone. Now Eto was becoming intertwined with that memory, how conceited of her, eelings made of strings of thorns knotted themselves in his heart. 

Ah, he just smelled her. On an objective level, that might have been a little creepy right. Was this momentary slip the result of pushing feeling back for too long. 

Eto didn’t seem to mind. 

That was the way it was with Eto, though. Like the hero in No Longer Human, she made you want to slip further into depravity. 

So Kaneki let himself slip. He stopped resisting fully to where Eto’s body was guiding them with her leaning. They fell backwards together onto the bed, one of his arms still wrapped around her. 

“Oh, what is this?” Eto asked, curiosity first and forefront her emotion. 

“You won’t fall asleep sitting up,” Kaneki answered, but this was the first time he averted his eyes. She saw the circles of red that dotted his expression. 

“Is that so,” She commented neutrally. Eto saw the chance to strike and embarrass him but didn’t take it. What was that, exactly. Another whim. 

\---

“My dear lost one”

“Your parents failed in raising you”

And I died.

Eto finally finished, and closed the book with her one hand. By this point, Kaneki had fallen asleep, still lying next to her and holding her side. This had been for her sake originally, right. 

How useless humans were. 

She thought as she poked the cheek of Kaneki’s sleeping face. 

Why did things turn out this way, she wondered to herself. If she truly wished it, she could take what she wanted from him easily enough. Kaneki kept himself restrained, but the few times they were together in public she could still see the traces of his hunger. The way he looked at the thighs of women they passed, stealing away glances as if no-one would notice, as if that would be enough to satisfy. It made him stink of inexperience. She could give him more though, it would be easy. A roll of her hips, a sway of her body. 

They both could have what they wanted, in a way at least. 

Yet she was content to sit here and lie passively against him. To Eto, passivity was weakness, it was death. But weakness and death didn’t seem to matter as long a sshe died in Kaneki’s arms.

N-no.

You see.

Novels required pacing, you see. Characters rise and fell against each other in long drawn out arcs. That was why she had to be patient and wait for things to play out. Nothing more than her good sense as an author. 

She was an author and he was a reader. They lived together, after all. Now they had fallen asleep together too, in the same room.

“In this room, you’re not allowed to love anyone,” Eto whispered, into Kaneki’s chest.Then she too fell asleep, her face pressed against it. 


End file.
